GOING FORWARD

Just last week I mentioned some of those blind people who reach what seems like impossible feats. Today I attended a program where the speaker was Lex Gillette, a Paralympian who is blind. Someone asked him what was his longest jump, and I lost my breath when he said 22.9 feet and his hope was to reach 24 feet.

www.nbcolympics.com/video/lex-gillette-how-long-jump-while-blindCached

 

Just yesterday I met a lady in her fifties who is still alive after several brain surgeries for four large brain aneurysms and two strokes, who has just recently parked her car forever and is learning how to use an iPhone as a blind person. I decided to play my last blog for her just to try to make her realize so many people have their hands out to help her and encourage her as she encourages others, kind of like those people in Texas this week. She immediately stopped crying and picked up her phone.

 

Then I thought about myself and relived my tiny pathetic victory on Friday. It was a perfect walking day, partly cloudy, my favorite lighting for walking. I needed to go to the drug store for a prescription, but all I could think of was that one precarious street I would have to cross. I called a friend hoping she was going out and I could tag along. She was already gone. Finally, after about an hour of self talk I harnessed Vivi and started on my walk, less than a mile to get there. The distance was not the problem, the street loomed large in my mind. I guess if I were Lex Gillette I could just take a running start and jump the thing. Vivi and I began our walk in our usual speed until suddenly I realized I was short of breath, gasping a bit, heart racing and sweat beads on my forehead. My legs felt weak and even my shoulders felt tight and my brain felt stupid because it realized this was a full-blown panic attack. I turned around to go home but Vivi was stubborn and sat down on the sidewalk like she planned to have a sit-in. So I took a very deep breath, said a very urgent prayer and headed for Wall Greens. Amazingly, once we got to the street the fear went away. I remembered all the times I had sat in a cab waiting almost 5 minutes to turn onto that street so I knew I had a very long time to cross and unless someone ran the light we would be fine. What had I been afraid of anyway? Then I remembered, I still had to walk back home.

After getting the prescription and the pneumonia shot I had been putting off for two years my friend called to ask if I still needed a ride. I couldn’t believe I told her no. Somehow I hoped she would show up anyway, but she took me at my word so off we went. This time I was confident as we began crossing the street knowing that Vivi would stop on a dime should someone turn right on red in front of us. No one did, but just as we got in the middle of the 6-lane crossing a horn began a sustaining blowing as some young men started whistling and barking trying to distract Vivi. This has happened before and is a cruel thing for people to do, yet it happens. Vivi did not become distracted one bit, partly because she knows better, and partly because she hopes to get a small kibble once we get to the other side at that particular spot. She got one.

 

Now I could write a pretty long blurb about today when they were repaving my street and I needed to get away. Vivi and I walked on the grass, going behind the mailboxes. Just as we got behind them both the garbage trucks and the recycle trucks stopped and all I could hear was motors and glass falling into trucks one bin after another. I was on unfamiliar territory so couldn’t turn around and didn’t know exactly where those trucks were if I went forward. That is when you realize why you got a guidedog.

 

Tomorrow I think I may just take a break and stay home and play my full 88-key keyboard that a friend gave me about a month ago. She just couldn’t seem to stand the fact that I did not have a keyboard and she was not happy until I finally agreed to accept her more than generous gift. With so much happening this summer I had really not planned to ever play music again. Then, just like the lady picked up her iPhone yesterday, and just like Lex Gillette being willing to use his gift to jump almost 23 feet, I can hardly wait to drown myself in music … tomorrow. Maybe I can write a song about small and large victories and the good that still lives inside people in our world.